


Thaw

by 852_Prospect_Archivist



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Angst, Drama, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2013-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-11 08:21:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/795979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/852_Prospect_Archivist/pseuds/852_Prospect_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, you can go home again.  (Post TS by BS)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thaw

## Thaw

by J M Griffin

Not mine, no money earned, no infringement intended.

This story was previously published in Essential Sentinel #3 in Nov. of 2001. 

Bad dreams, but no death.

* * *

Thaw  
by J. M. Griffin 

Part One (Blair) 

It began the night I dreamed Jim died. In the dream, I was upset by the information. Megan was the bearer of the bad-tidings, and I didn't want to believe it so I argued and argued with her. I woke up with my guts in a knot, not wanting Jim to be dead. It made me sick at my stomach to even think about it. 

I got up, got dressed, went to work. I did not call Megan Conner. And not just because she was in the final throes of planning her wedding and only answered her phone for caterers and florists. But because I knew Jim was alive and fine back in Cascade. He had to be. The world would stop spinning if Jim Ellison were dead. My world anyway. 

Oddly enough, my world had not stopped spinning when I left Cascade. But maybe my heart had stopped beating. 

In my dream, I had seen Jim smiling and laughing. And then I had seen him dead in a morgue, his beautiful face frozen in a grimace of pain. I hadn't even made it into my office yet and my stomach was hurting again. 

"Good morning, Dr. Sandburg, I won the pot." Mary Ellen, the secretary I shared with three other professors, shot me a wink and an evil grin, a startling look for a round, motherly woman of fifty-eight. Of course, she had won the office pool, this grandmother knew more about gay sex than many young things out roaming the clubs. She wrote erotica, sold it too, and kept threatening to quit her job here at the university to write full time. Anyway, she'd said all along that Max would be the one to ask Jared out first, and even predicted when. 

"What are you going to do with your winnings?" I asked, and wasn't surprised when she said she'd use it to buy a plane ticket to see her newest grandbaby. 

"Dr. Sandburg... Blair?" she said abruptly, the gleam in her eye replaced with a look of concern. "Are you all right?" 

"Yeah, why do you ask?" I had almost said, "No, I miss him." I did. I do. I turned away so she wouldn't see my face, because she'd know I was lying. 

"Buy that plane ticket on-line, Mary E. You'll save money that way," I called to her as I ducked into my office. Sitting in my desk chair, suddenly I was back in my dream, seeing Jim's face again, first alive and then dead. I shook my head to clear it of the unwanted vision. Why was this happening now? 

Three years had gone by since I shut off the part of myself that loved Jim Ellison. I had refused to mourn; I had refused to admit I had lost anything. To dream of Jim now, years later, was odd. My heart had been frozen for so long; it would hurt like hell if it came back to life. 

* * *

I got home that night to find my phone ringing. Grabbing it, I was shocked to hear Simon Banks' voice. 

"Sandburg, Rafe made me promise to remind you the wedding is this Saturday. Said he would kill you if you didn't show up." 

Damn. The last time I had heard from Simon was when he had called to tell me Jim had been shot and I should get my butt back to Cascade. I had gone, sat by Jim's bed while he was in a drug induced coma, and then left as soon as he woke up. 

"Sandburg, promise me you'll come," Simon growled. 

I didn't want to go to Megan and Rafe's wedding. Jim was sure to be there. I didn't want to see him. Megan once told me Jim thought he'd dreamed me being at his bedside back when he'd been shot. I had told her to leave it that way. 

"Sandburg...," 

"Okay, okay, I'll be there." I put the phone down with a sigh. It looked like I was going to a wedding. Maybe I'd get lucky and Jim wouldn't attend. 

* * *

I knew he was there the moment I stepped into the church. Henri Brown saw me across the room and his eyes immediately cut to where Jim was standing all decked out in his tux. Damn, he looked fine. I had to force myself to take my eyes off my ex-lover. Oh, did I let that slip? Yes, we had been lovers. Seeing Jim in the beautifully cut, black tuxedo reminded me of the first time we made love. Jim had gotten "Cop of the Year" for the second time. As always, being in the limelight made him uneasy. He had argued with me about going to the banquet, saying it wasn't fair, the award was as much mine at his, that his high solve rate was due to our work as partners. I had nodded and told him to shut up, he was going. He said he'd only go if I went along. 

But we never made it to the banquet. I had watched him come down the stairs from his bedroom, dressed to the nines. I suppose the look on my face had given me away. Anyway, I was rooted to the spot as he descended, totally spellbound by the sight of him in that damned tux. But the real shock had come when Jim had reached the last step and kept on moving toward me. He had stopped mere inches from me and swooped, yes, swooped down and kissed me. I remember going up on my toes and kissing him back with an intensity that scared me. 

We were ravenous for each other. Too many years of pent up passion on my part. Too many years of denial on his. It was like coming home that first time. I will never forget the feel of him through the thin wool of his dress pants, huge and hard and hot against my thigh. Oh god, I wanted him so badly I'd thought I would burst before we got our clothes off. 

It had been fast and furious and we'd ignored Simon's call demanding to know where Jim was. By morning we'd done it all, and Jim had slept sprawled across his bed as I watched and wondered what was in store for us. I never would have predicted what actually happened. That he would freeze me out of his life. That I would stomp out of his. 

The good part had lasted a matter of months, but the brilliance of that time could not be tarnished, even now, after all the hell we'd put each other through in the years since. I loved him. I missed him. I hated him. 

I think Jim felt the same way. He looked at me across the church and then turned away quickly. I would have left right then and there, but Joel came up and engulfed me in a bear hug. So I ended up staying and sitting by Joel and his wife. 

Megan and Rafe got married with all the usual pomp and circumstance. I went to the reception and hung in there until the toast had been made to the bride and groom, then I ducked out, thinking I'd been lucky to make it through the entire evening without once having to confront Jim. 

He was standing by my car when I came out into the moonlit parking lot. 

"Oh, hi," I said stupidly. 

Jim just looked at me, not saying a word. 

"Hey, are you okay?" I asked finally. 

"You were there. In the hospital after I got shot. It was you, wasn't it? Not just a dream." Jim's eyes were silver in the light of the harvest moon. 

I nodded. "It was me." 

Jim took a step closer. "I never stopped loving you." 

I was rocked to my core. I had never expected this from Jim Ellison. He had never, in our entire time together as lovers, said he loved me. 

"Why now?" I asked, and I could not keep the quiver out of my voice. 

"I was stupid." Jim said softly, his voice as shimmery at the light in his eyes. " _I_ made Simon call you, not Rafe." 

"Oh god." It was all I could think of to say. 

"Blair," he said, and the ice melted in my chest and my heart began to thaw. As predicted, it hurt like hell. 

"Blair," Jim repeated. "God damn it." 

He rarely swore, so I was surprised. 

"Come home," he continued. "Please. I love you." 

I just looked at him, a myriad of thoughts running through my brain. I pictured my apartment, cold and drab and so unlike me. Somehow I had never gotten around to decorating it. I thought of the loft with all my tribal masks and various artifacts strewn around. I had never really left. 

"Yes," I said. And my heart started beating again. 

Part Two (Jim) 

Blair was twenty-five when I met him. And a few months short of thirty when he left. The years between were the best years of my life. So why is he living in that little town on the outskirts of Seattle and I'm here in Cascade all alone? 

The night he left he accused me of being ice. Shouted it in my face, actually. 

"You're ice, Jim. Total ice. How can anybody as warm as you physically be so cold emotionally?" 

His face was red and his hair whipped around, sticking to his damp cheeks as he shouted. Moments later he stormed out. 

I've spent three years thinking about what he said that night. Three long years thinking about him. About how I could get him back in my life. But I can't seem to work it out in my head. I am ice-cold. He's right about that. I wasn't then, though. 

Back then I was terribly in love, but didn't have a clue how to show it. I mean, I knew how to make love to him. Oh, how I loved to do that. To make him howl my name as he came. To run my fingers through his fine curls. To take him into my body, to feel him pumping hard, his sweat dripping on my belly, his eyes glazed with passion. To explode without him putting a hand on my cock. 

Yeah, it was like that. So why was I such a cold, mean bastard that night? Because after the fountain, after Alex, after the dissertation fiasco, I was so scared he'd leave, I pushed him away. 

Not too bright, am I? 

After he left, well, I picked up the phone a million times and never made the call. I never told him the ice was bullshit my fail-safe when I got too close to admitting to myself how much I loved him. 

I'm going to see him today for the first time in three years, because after a stormy, twoyear romance, Rafe and Megan are getting married. Blair might not have agreed to come at all if it hadn't been both of them, marrying each other. And the phone call I'd begged Simon to make. 

I dreamed of Blair last night. Dreamed that it was already morning and I woke up to find him sitting in a chair beside my bed. He leaned over and his hair, long once again, swung forward around his beautiful face. He told me, //Jim, I forgive you.// 

I've had the dream before. Last year, after I got shot, I dreamed him sitting beside my hospital bed. This morning it seemed much more real. When I awoke, there were tears on my cheeks. I knew then the thaw had come, and I wasn't scared anymore. 

I also knew that when I saw him at the wedding, I'll be able to say what I couldn't tell him until now. 

//Come home. Please, Blair. I love you.// 

* * *

End Thaw by J M Griffin: aeriejm@pdq.net

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